Friday, July 6th: Muir Ranch

Friday, July 6th: Hot springs and Muir Ranch. Mile 859.6. I was running out of food and still had 3 days to make it to Mammoth Lakes CA. There was a rumor on the trail that Muir Ranch's hiker box was a pretty solid score. I was banking on that information when I decided that I would take the side trail to the ranch. Despite my eating lightly I still rolled into the ranch having only 3 ramon and 3 bars left (which would have had to have lasted three full days of high Sierra hiking!). I was a little worried that the hiker box was going to be empty. If that was the case I would have really been in a bind. There was no where to buy food at the ranch. You could have ordered food be shipped in to the ranch by pack muel for the low cost of 55 dollars, however you had to do this weeks in advanced. Due to my low desire to plan most of the trail, yet more importantly the lack of the 55 dollars, I obviously did not have this done. The hiker box ended up being pretty scarce but I was able to grab some food such as oatmeal, stale trail mix, and soy milk powder. I was just thankful that the box had something. I wasn't really looking forward to eating oatmeal for 3 days straight but it was better than attempting the Sierra passes without food in my system. It was then that I was organizing my food that a man came up to me and said, "Didn't realize you would have all that extra food, did ya?". Thats when I responded "Well, I'm thru hiking the PCT and I'm actually quite short on food."
He responded with, "Oh, well I'm just doing the JMT and my partner and I have extra food we can give you"
The two men gave me:

2 mountain house meals
A bag of salted mixed nuts
A bag of pistachios
A bag of homemade granola (which goes really well with the powdered soy milk)
Dehydrated sweet potatoes
2 bars
A handfull of drink mixes
Chocolate covered acai berries
Tea bags
A bag of almonds
And some starbucks coffee packets!

Needless to say I put the oatmeal back...

I spent the rest of the day hanging out by the natural hot springs and warm lake not too far from the ranch.